“I have just been fired because nobody wants to see vampire killers anymore, or vampires either. Apparently, all they want to see are demented madmen running around in ski-masks, hacking up young virgins.” – Fright Night
If Kamala is selected president, she promised a new post-apocalyptic movie. She’s calling it Mad Marx.
As I’ve mentioned before, when I was a kid (think four or five) there was a local channel that ran horror movies late at night on Saturday night. First there was the news at 10PM, then Star Trek at 10:30PM, and then, finally, at 11:30 Creepy Creature Feature started.
There was no host, just a title card with a vampire and perhaps some cobwebs followed by one or two B-movies and whatever ads the local salesguy could sell for midnight on a Saturday night. I’d imagine the ads were nearly free: five-year-olds in my generation didn’t have a lot of disposable income.
The movies were (at the time I was growing up) almost all from the 1950s and 1960s, and almost all of them were in black and white. I think that the television station could get these movies for very low cost, or, perhaps free in movies that failed to follow the proper copyright steps, like Night of the Living Dead.
Who flips Rob Zombie’s pancakes? Count Spatula.
Last month Bob suggested I revisit the old Hammer Film Productions® films, which are mainly known for their Frankenstein and Dracula movies. The studio turned out over fifty films, however, before it started cranking out science fiction and horror movies around 1957, and brought Peter Cushing in as an actor and having him join former British commando Christopher Lee in 1958 with Lee playing Dracula.
An aside: apparently when they were filming Lord of the Rings, director Peter Jackson was describing how he wanted Lee (playing Saruman) to react when Wormtongue stabbed him in the back. Lee stopped Jackson when he was trying to explain what he wanted. Lee: “Have you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody is stabbed in the back? Because I do.
To be blunt: I have never seen a scary Hammer™ film. Most of them were, at their very best, entertaining. F-Troop’s Forrest Tucker as a scientist in the 1957 film The Abominable Snowman? Yeah, that’s not going to be scary.
And if the animal got stuck in the chute, would that make him adoorabull?
Oh, sure, when I was a kid Hammer’s® Quatermass and the Pit (United States title: Five Million Years to Earth) gave me shivers when I was in still in the footed pajama set, but rewatching it as an adult, I found it an interesting concept (alien overlords still “kind of” alive underneath London), but not scary.
One of the big differences I have seen in either the Hammer™ movies, or any number of movies from the day were built around concepts that seem to have been put away in the current political climate.
What concepts?
Humans are the good guys. Sure, not all humans were good. There were sniveling bad guys (mostly effeminate) or traitors (especially mostly secret commies) or scientists who didn’t understand what they were doing. Or Dr. Fu Manchu – he was definitely a bad guy, from a culture so different that although his goal of world domination was clear, his motives were less so.
Dr. Fu Manchu is still more credible than Dr. Fauci.
There was an optimism about the future. Roger Corman’s horrible movie Day the World Ended (1955) scared me six ways from Sunday because there was a mutant that was afraid of rain and I lived in a place where it hardly ever rained. But the end of the
Just like traitors, the scariest bad guys looked like us but weren’t us. Dracula, for instance, was, like Cornpop, a bad dude. And he looked like us. And, sort of, acted like us. But you knew, deep down, he wasn’t human.
We (generally) win. Now, I’ll admit that I like John Carpenter movies where at the end of the movie I’m pretty sure that mankind was wiped out sometime not long after the credits roll: (The Thing, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness). But most horror movies of the 1950s and 1960s were optimistic that brainpower plus grit would solve almost any problem we face. Of course, the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers was in the “we lose” category, but it was pretty amazing, but much more common were films like When Worlds Collide where humanity, led by Elon Musk, manages to save itself through nearly impossible odds. On a rocket. With hot chicks.
I guess he’s now offering space for rent.
For whatever reason, I think the end of the optimism was around 1970. Westerns turned dark, and B-movies where humanity was the bad guy or where humanity out and out lost became much more common, such as Colossus, the Forbin Project, where supercomputers manage to link up and prove that A.I. is scary and may become humanity’s master benevolent and will be the best thing ever to happen to humanity. Not long after this (1974) Hammer® was essentially done making films and their quirky and optimistic take didn’t seem to sell anymore.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Hammer’s© fall was right after The Exorcist (1973) came out. It might be the final and most optimistic movie of this period of horror/science fiction. Although not a B-movie, it did show a world where true Evil was far scarier than anything that Dracula or Frankenstein ever was.
Yeah, the doctor even called the cemetery, “Human Resources”.
The Exorcist, optimistic? William Peter Blatty certainly thought so, since, although there was Evil, it could be vanquished.
By Good. And no matter how many times Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing tried, he never ever could get rid of Hammer’s™ Dracula. Probably because Van Helsing knew that Christopher Lee was pretty good with a knife.
That Rob Zombie pic is pretty darn funny, John, even by your standards. 😆
Thank you! Honestly, I can’t get the lyrics out of my head now. “Welcome to my new show, baking with Rob Zombie.”
Mad Marx. Ha.
You link the fall of the traditional horror B-movie to 1973 and The Exorcist. Could be. That was certainly the beginning of a wave of movies that had some version of Antichrist as the monster. And the the teen slasher genre started up around the same time in 1974 with Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
But as we all know, the easiest way to kill a movement is to make fun of it. And I think in 1975 the horror movie genre was spoofed into oblivion by the fantastic Rocky Horror Picture Show. I admit that I have certainly spent my fair share of fun college-age midnights doing the Time Warp again. In fact, one of my most surreal moments was seeing it on the midnight of 4th of July in 1981 after fireworks in Houston, and before it began there was an honor guard that marched the American Flag down the aisle before the movie began and we all stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance and every single person in that audience was dead serious about pride in America and their ability under the First Amendment to participate in the ritual that was about to begin.
Good times. There were a few final horror movies in that late70s-early 80s period where Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver showed us that strong women can fight monsters without being girlbosses. Then horror movies mutated to became more about the gore and the splatter and the sequel, not the monster himself.
But you are right, the mid 70s was indeed a turning point. Somehow over the past 40+ years the sexuality at the heart of RHPS has gone from a fun parody to a twisted reality. That’s the greatest horror of all.
Well said, Ricky. Thank you again for your efforts in support of John, and of our Lord. m
Just for the fun of it I looked up RHPS at Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocky_Horror_Picture_Show ) To my surprise its British roots indeed extend all the way down to Hammer Studios. The RHPS production used the Hammer filming grounds of Oakley Court for the castle/spaceship, and drew heavily from the Hammer prop library.
Nobody could do surreal tongue-in-cheek spy/SF/horror like the British back then. I was fortunate enough to have an early adolescent introduction to this artform as an avid fan of The Avengers, which was the first British TV show ever aired in America (on ABC). The thespian predecessor to Scully in the X-Files, Emma Peel was then and shall always remain the greatest TV heroine ever.
“Emma Peel was then and shall always remain the greatest TV heroine ever”
+1. Attractive, capable, smart, (still) feminine, not snarky
Completely agree about Emma Peel. I wasn’t so fortunate as to be able to watch the Avengers as a child (our antenna would only pick up one channel), but I did start catching reruns about a decade ago. I fell in love with the show and bought the compete series. It had very unique storylines while also being a bit campy and apolitical. I even loved some of the views of the old British countryside.
I also tried watching some of the pre-Emma seasons (can’t recall the actress’s name) but just never grabbed my interest. The girl that replaced Emma (Tara?) was okay and still enjoyed those episodes, but it wasn’t quite the same.
D
Steed’s companion before Emma was Kathy Gale played by actress Honor Blackman, who as a beloved Avenger among early 1960s Brits went on to play P*ssy Galore in Goldfinger. Dame Diana Rigg likewise went on to be a Bond girl in the movies herself after being replaced by Tara in the Avengers.
The Hammer movies are certainly fun memories from the UK of the 1950s ( I saw my share of them as a kid on the Channel 9 Science Fiction Theater, 2:30 every Sunday afternoon) that perhaps don’t hold up so well today. But if you wanna go on a UK nostalgia trip that will always be fresh and fun, this is the best entertainment $25 you’ll ever spend.
https://www.amazon.com/Avengers-Complete-Emma-Peel-Megaset/dp/B00E5G03I4/
But if you’ve not got 16 DVDs worth of time… here’s the essence of Emma in 4 minutes. 🙂
Well, no wonder it looked familiar!
I missed the RHPS mania, but I wonder if it wasn’t predictive or even a drive to normalize the insanity we see around us today?
mild correction; Forrest Tucker was the “ugly american” seeking to exploit the Yeti in the Abominable Snowman and Peter Cushing played the scientist. Not scary but a good flick. Forrest played a scientist in two British sci-fis, The Crawling Eye and The Cosmic Monsters, around that same time, however. You could tell he was a scientist since he wore glasses!
Ha, yes! I watched that movie about 15 years ago since it was on archive.org as public domain, and I picked a few clips out that were unintentionally funny. By the way, I did mention Tucker as “Hal bait” 🙂
… but rewatching it as an adult, I found it an interesting concept (alien overlords still “kind of” alive underneath London), but not scary.
correct attitude. Yes those ‘kind ofs’ exist, a good example is the machinations of Egypt and others towards revivcation of ancient evil.
Those with the Lord do not fear the weasels of this sad, fallen world. they will be dealt with in due time. cheers
If you’ve not seen it, the aliens had horns.
back then one could speak the truth. Now, not so much.
Here’s a film that scared the bejesus out of me as a kid. Retelling of Frankenstein with a 50’s look.
Colossus of New York
Nice! I haven’t seen that one.
John – I have never been much of a horror film guy. That said, I do agree with your analysis that they were on the whole, optimistic.
If you have Netlix, Bone Tomahawk (with Kurt Russell) is well worth your time.
Love Bone Tomahawk.
Interesting how things were similar in those way back days. Here in the Tampa Bay area, we had likely the same movies, but with a host – Dr Paul Bearer. Made up like you’d expect, with a deep gravely voice. Stayed at my Granny’s house almost every weekend until about 1970 when she passed, and up until about 69 when I hit 16 and my interest turned to the female type women and their various attributes (imagine that!) I doubt I ever missed a show. Good times, indeed! And you’re correct about the themes – they were better in the earlier flicks. Wish it was that simple now – just wishful thinking, though. Got nearly all of the old 40’s-60’s sci fi and scary type flicks on my puter, though. Gotta decide on a conversion program first so I can burn em and play em on the tube, since there’s several different formats for them – any recommendations? Grandson’s staying with me for a while (30 and divorced, and outta the army for just short of 2 years), and he’s never seen most of em. Poor boy’s been deprived! I gonna ed-u-ma-cate him😲 Hell, I’ll enjoy it, too!
Y’all take care,
Mike in FLA.
Hi Mike…Give Wondershare UniConverter a trial. Works for me…even upscales some things as well as convert 4:3 format to 16:9 widescreen with minimal distortion id you choose Pan/Scan
Many thanks for the recommendation! I’ll give it a look.
Mike in FLA.
Paul Bearer! I love it!
Mike, my youngest put them all on a server and used Plex so I can stream my own video content anywhere in the house. It works seamlessly. Email me if you want more details.
Mornin John. Email inbound.
Mike in FLA.